Musings on Life, Crafts & Everything! Sort of…

Don’t do that to your new knife!

I finished a new friction folder for J. a few days ago. It was duly posted, J. happily received it and was very pleased. Perfect, I like a happy customer!

Fast forward a couple a days, I received an Email from him. Disaster: the blade is now swinging loose, whereas it was very tight when I sent it. What could have happened? there are no adjustable parts on a friction folder: the tightness of the blade in the handle is entirely controlled by the riveting process. The wood scales are generally quite thin, so unlikely to shrink enough to get a loose pivot. And the blade, washers, pins and liners don’t do shrinking…

J's knife

So what happened? I received the knife back a couple of days ago: nothing that could be seen. The mystery was finally solved when I asked if J. had central heating. It turns out the knife spent the night sitting on a radiator, which went on in the morning…. I don’t know how long it was sitting on there, dessicating!

People tend to forget that wood is a natural material and is sensitive to changes in humidity level. So please, don’t do it to your new knife particularly if it’s me who made it!

Also, please don’t try to sharpen and/or polish your shiny new blade with one of those…it don’t work! I had to make a new blade for someone who’d done just that.